A lot of well-deserved ink gets spilled about scientific discoveries and technical innovations that faculty members conjure on campus. Alex Barker, who directs MU’s Museum of Art and Archaeology, is a big fan of such revelations.

Like a determined rebounder cleaving through defenders to crash the backboard, newly hired Coach Robin Pingeton cuts right to the chase about the state of the women’s basketball program at Mizzou. “We are in a major rebuilding situation here,” she says.

The story of junior Kim English camping out at Mizzou Arena has become folklore at the University of Missouri. Fans envision him shooting jump shots alone like a real-life Jimmy Chitwood, his swishes and shoe squeaks echoing in the cavernous space.

If you looked at John Gilbert’s life on paper a few years back, you might have thought he was going nowhere fast. Gilbert is a paraplegic from a poor, single-parent home in a tiny and economically troubled Missouri town.